One Mississippi
by lemonjelly
Summary: [GC] “Want me to tell you about the time Lindsey accidentally locked Gil in our bathroom?” she offers brightly. “She was about six. He was stuck in there until I came home from work four hours later.” Complete.
1. A Urgent One

**Disclaimer: They're not mine.**

**Rating: PG or K+**

**Summary: "Want me to tell you about the time Lindsey accidentally locked Gil in our bathroom. She was about six. He was stuck in there until I came home from work four hours later."**

**Wow – two updates in one day must be a record for me, so I hope you enjoy this. This is my birthday present to you since it's my birthday today so, if anyone's looking for a good gift to get me, I'd love to see the cast of CSI on my doorstep, but I'll settle for a review. This chapter is only short, but they do get longer.**

**Thanks to everyone's who's been reviewing "Wake The Hope" – you've really been great, so this is for those of your who only read it for the now-finished GCR moments. Also this is for the last reviewers of the GCR "Perpetuity": Lissa88, dawn2323, sitarra, Lynh, September, bloodymary2, Miggyrow, Review1234 and cherishedcrush who were just as fantastic. Thanks again. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
**

**One Mississippi. Chapter One. A Urgent One**

- o -

_"Want me to tell you about the time Lindsey accidentally locked Gil in our bathroom?" she offers brightly. "She was about six. He was stuck in there until I came home from work four hours later."_

_Sara laughs again but more bitterly this time. "Hell yeah." _ - Wake The Hope

-

**03:22**

Two hours is a long time to remain in one place with nothing to do, Gil ponders as he lies in Catherine's bathtub, fully-clothed and dry. He throws the bar of soap up and down in the air lazily until it slips from his hands and he decides it isn't worth reaching for. This is, he thinks to himself, the very last time he does a favour for Catherine Willows. But then again, he knows that isn't true.

He yawns widely and glances at his watch. Maybe she's right. Maybe this mess is partially his own fault...

-

"_Please_, Gil!"

"Cath..."

"Pleaaaase?"

"Catherine, I'm really sorry but this was my night off for a reason. I've got plans..."

"What sort of plans?" Catherine demanded, dubiously. Gil Grissom was not the type of person to Have Plans – not social plans, at least.

"I've just got..." his cheeks burnt red, "plans." He looked at her rather lamely and she did not look impressed.

"And I've got a six year old who's going to get dropped around my house in less than an hour only to find that nobody's there," Catherine answered sharply. She looked at him appealing. "Please, Gil – if I'm not there, Eddie'll file another complaint and who knows what'll happen to Lindsey and me. I couldn't live if she was ever taken away from me..."

Gil sighed and softened. That changed things somewhat. He remembered only a month ago when Catherine turned up in his office holding that complaint filed by her jackass. Sorry, not 'jackass' – 'ex-husband'. He often got them mixed up but then, he reasoned, it was an easy mistake to make. He remembered how she shifted from mood to mood: first furious then upset and then just hurt. Oh well, he thought, it's not as though what he had planned was _that _important...

"Fine." he relented and Catherine beamed, jumping up and hugging him tightly.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she chattered with such a broad smile across her face than Gil grinned back, despite everything. "You know what to do, right?"

"Are you kidding me? I've done this enough times to know by now," he smiled slightly. "Read a story...put her to bed at half seven..."

Catherine shook her head slightly with a smile, "How could I doubt you? I knew you wouldn't let me down." And she pecked him on the cheek before dashing off to where Brass and Nick were waiting outside, ready to roll. Grissom watched her go before heading to his locker.

"I would never let you down."

-

**03:37**

Now without the amusement of throwing and catching the soap, Gil feels blindly around him on the edges of the bathtub, not even bothering to look. His hand grasps a shampoo bottle and he holds it above him to read it.

Neutrogena Clean.

For dry/damaged hair.

Gil ponders this for a moment. Catherine's hair didn't look dry or damaged. Maybe this is why. He uncaps the bottle and sniffs the contents with some sleepy satisfaction – it smelt like her hair and he liked that. But now he sits up in the bath and looks at himself in the opposite mirror with a frown. What is _wrong _with him? He, Gil Grissom, is actually lying, still dressed at half three in the morning, in Catherine's empty bathtub and considering how effective her shampoo is. He has never been this apathetic in his life, he is sure of it.

Still holding the bottle in his hand, he stares absent-mindedly at it. How ever did he get himself into this stupid mess? Right – of course – helping out a friend. And Catherine, at that. Helping out Catherine would always be different to anyone else because he would always, always, without fail, drop everything to give her a hand. He really did have his own plans. A urgent one.

He pauses and frowns. That thought was grammatically incorrect, he muses. Have two hours of solitary confinement really done this to him? Because it never really hurt him before...

And then he realises what he's staring at and he smiles. He's found something to do.

A Urgent One, he discovers with a grin, was a subconscious anagram of Neutrogena. And how terribly appropriate.

- o -


	2. Run To A Gene

**Disclaimer: They're not mine.**

**Rating: PG or K+**

**Summary: "Want me to tell you about the time Lindsey accidentally locked Gil in our bathroom?" she offered brightly. "She was about six. He was stuck in there until I came home from work four hours later."**

**Well this got a pretty great response! I would've held out for more reviews cos I'm like that, but you responded just so quickly. Thanks, reviewers – icklebitodd, DrusillaBraun, CinnamonFaerie, sitarra, haley104 (Clearly not), charmed1818 (Yep – there is!), AngelJunkie, Review1234 (Ha ha – very smooth!), jamie, September (Thank you!), Nix, Lizzy Sidle (Ouch – how long were you stuck for?) and Amanda. **

**I hope the whole time-frame jumping business doesn't get too complicated, but basically – it'll stick to this main format of Present/Past/Present if that's all okay with you. And yes – all the chapter names are anagrams of "Neutrogena." Oh, and I've tried to get some Jackpot-style phone misunderstandings going in this chapter and in another chapter too. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
**

**One Mississippi. Chapter Two. Run To A Gene**

- o -

**03:51**

Whilst considering more anagrams of Catherine's shampoo bottle to keep himself occupied, Gil hears a faint sniffing outside the bedroom door where he'd finally convinced Lindsey to go to sleep only an hour earlier.

"Lindsey?" he calls. "Linds?"

He sits up in the bathtub and, in attempting to leap out, catches his foot on the edge of the tub and falls onto the linoleum painfully, knocking the wind out of himself. Groaning and rubbing his ribs, he shuffles over to the locked door and peers through the crack under it: Lindsey sits cross-legged in her pyjamas on the carpet outside and rubs at her eyes, crying.

"Mommy..." she sobs.

Gil exhales frustratedly once again for being on the wrong side of this damned door and tries to get the little girl's attention.

"Lindsey, sweetie?" he calls again. "Honey – what's wrong? What's up?"

Lindsey, evidently forgetting that she'd locked her Uncle Gil in the bathroom, is only more freaked out by the disembodied voice and cries louder.

"No – no, Lindsey, honey, don't cry," he pleads hurriedly. "It's Uncle Gil. It's me. I'm just shut in the bathroom, remember?"

The six year old seems to weigh up the probability of this in her head before remembering accidentally locking her Uncle Gil in the bathroom so she creeps closer to the door and puts her hand on the wooden surface. She lays her head down sideways on the floor and blinks the little bit of the familiar face that she can see.

"Hi!" Gil greets her cheerily for want of something better to say. Lindsey blinks some more.

Then she sits up again and resumes crying. "Mommy..."

"Oh boy." Gil mutters quietly to himself. He pulls himself sitting, wincing over his bruised ribs, and flips open his cell phone to press his speed dial one – Catherine – who else? And for the fourth time that night, Gil Grissom's name flashes up on Catherine's caller ID.

-

The first time was when he'd called her up so Lindsey could say goodnight before he took her to brush her teeth. That'd been a relatively normal phone conversation compared to the others that followed it. Gil had assured her that he had things under control and Lindsey had told her that Uncle Gil had turned her baked potato into a ladybird, with carrot-stick antennae and everything. When Catherine hung up the phone, she had sunken down a little more in the seat of her Denali, thinking about how much she hated those nights when she'd say goodnight to her daughter over the phone, not being the one to tuck her in and kiss her. There were too many nights like that.

And then she got a second phone call, just twenty minutes later.

"Catherine," Gil began carefully. "Lindsey's got her teeth brushed and is all ready for bed..."

"Great – thank you, Gil. I really owe you one," Catherine gushed.

"– But..." he went on, and Catherine froze up.

"What? What "but"? What's happened?" she demanded, switching automatically into Panicked-Mother Mode.

"But I'm stuck." he said.

There was a long pause and all Gil heard was silence down the line before Catherine finally came back to him with:

"Stuck?"

"In your bathroom," he elaborated. "We brushed Lindsey's teeth and she's already for bed but the door shut and now I can't open it."

Catherine groaned; the door had a tendency to do that and, as far as she was aware, it could only be reopened from the outside. And the only person who could do that was herself.

"I'm sorry, Gil. I'll be home as quickly as I can..." she said, lamely. Great – not only had she forced him out of his rare night-off, now she'd also had him imprisoned in her bathroom.

"What are you trying to say, Catherine...?" his voice was cautious, not liking where this was going.

She chose her words carefully, feeling a sinking sense of guilty when she delicately informed him, "You might be there a while."

-

**04.00**

Catherine is sitting in the interrogation room with the standardised security guard and the woman she's questioning.

"So run that by me once more, Mrs. Palmer – you came home from work at quarter past five where you found the front door was already open?" Catherine begins slowly, studying the woman's reaction carefully for any blips and hesitations.

"That's right," she answers with a nod. Catherine opens her mouth to carry on but, just then, her cell phone goes off. A frown creases her face and she sighs apologetically when she reads the name on her cell phone screen.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Palmer – do you think you could hang on for just one second for me," Catherine says. "I've really got to take this call."

Mrs. Palmer nods. "Go ahead." And Catherine smiles briefly, heading to the corner of the room to flip open her cell.

"Hey, Gil." she greets him, already dreading what this phone call might hold in store for her, after all that's happened tonight.

"Catherine. Come home." he says immediately.

She smiles slightly at his desperate tone. "Gil, I told you, I'll be home as soon as I can make it but that won't be for another hour at the very least." And then she hears Lindsey crying in the background. "Wait – is that Lindsey? What's wrong? Why is she crying?"

"Cath, she's fine but she's woken up crying and asking for you – what do I do?" Gil asks her urgently. Catherine pauses, thinking this over, having to take into account the fact that Gil locked in the bathroom.

"Well you know what usually gets her back to sleep, don't you?" Catherine prompts him, knowing he's done this enough times to know.

Grissom hesitates. "I think I've forgotten the words." he offers lamely.

"Liar," Catherine retorts fondly. "You're the only grown man I've met who knows all the words to It's Not Easy Being Green."

"But I don't sing!" Grissom protests weakly.

"Sure you do! You sing in the shower," Catherine argues back. Gil doesn't say anything back but only whines slightly – singing was not his forte.

"No good can come of this, Catherine." he warns her. She only smiles.

"You'll be fine – you've done this before," she assures him, kindly. "Hang in there; I'll be home as soon as I can make it."

Catherine hangs up the phone, gazing at the empty screen for longer than she needs to, before turning back to the woman with another apology.

"It's fine," the woman replies. "I take it you're a mother then."

"Yeah – these hours mean I can't be there when my little girl wakes up in the night," she answers dully and holds up her cell phone with an ironic smile. "This is the closest I get."

"That's tough," Mrs. Palmer tells her sympathetically. "But at least you've got help; I don't think _my_ husband knows the names of his kids' friends, let alone The Muppets song lyrics."

Catherine smiles at her, picturing Gil singing It's Not Easy Being Green through the bathroom door keyhole to a distressed six year old at this very moment.

"Yeah – I don't know what I'd do without him."

And she doesn't even think to correct Mrs. Palmer on their ambiguous relationship technicalities.

- o -


	3. No Tune Rage

**Disclaimer: They're not mine.**

**Rating: PG or K+**

**Summary: "Want me to tell you about the time Lindsey accidentally locked Gil in our bathroom?" she offered brightly. "She was about six. He was stuck in there until I came home from work four hours later."**

**Thanks for the excellent reviews again – this thanks goes out to: DrusillaBraun, piepretzelngreg, AngelJunkie, Ladybug07, CSI Battosai (how long were you stuck in a bathroom for?), charmed1818 (haha!), dArkliTe-sPirit, ibreak4csi (I second that motion!), D.M.A.S, Review1234, icklebitodd, Lizzy Sidle (At least you had a toilet, indeed! Bathroom's probably the best place to get stuck in, come to think of it...), Mrs. Rhett Butler and Krys33 – who I also have to thank for going on some form of Giant Reviewing Rampage and reviewed a whole bunch of previous stuff – so thanks for that!**

**It also appears that pretty much everyone had their own stuck-for-ages-in-some-room story so if not even to comment at all on the fic – I'd like to hear your "stuck" stories, so post away! Anyway, I love the Muppets. A bit of a long chapter this time, so apologies in advance if you get bored mid-way. I'm also continuing the Jackpot-style phone-call misunderstandings because, my good friends, it's just So Much Fun. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -

**One Mississippi. Chapter Three. No Tune Rage**

- o -

**04.17**

Gil presses one eye up to the keyhole of the bathroom door. Lindsey is still crying, rubbing her eyes on her pyjama sleeves and very much frightened by the whole situation in which she can't fully remember what's been going on but all she knows is that she's very much alone in the cold hall without her mother or any adult in sight.

"Lindsey...Linds, sweetie – don't cry," he attempts from the other side of the door. Lindsey crawls close to the door.

"I'm scared, Uncle Gil." she whispers through the keyhole and he smiles a supportive smile that she can't see.

"I know, honey, but there's nothing to be scared of," he tries to reassure her. "What can I do to make you feel better?"

Lindsey sniffs a few times, holds tightly onto her stuffed toy bumblebee named Elmer and blinks tiredly a couple of times. "Sing the song," she asks him quietly. And Gil feels a part of him sink. The song. He'd hoped she wouldn't say that.

"Are you sure, Lindsey?" he replies, uncertainly. "I don't think that'd make you feel..."

"Sing the song! Sing the song! Sing the song!" she chants with a small smile through her tears. Her voice echoes in the empty house and she shuffles closer, hugging the door in the darkness. A few more tears fall down her face and she begins to whine. "Uncle Gil, I'm scared. Will you sing the song, please?"

She knows, Gil thinks, she must know how much he hates singing. Gil sighs but, before he can respond, his ringing cell phone cuts him off.

"Sorry," Catherine begins immediately as soon as he brings the cell to his ear. "You caught me right in the middle of questioning a witness, but I'm free now."

"Good," Gil answers sharply. "So you can come home and get me out of here, right?"

Catherine bites her lip. "Uh – no, sorry. Not quite that free..." She hears him sigh on the other end of the line and so changes the subject. "How's Lindsey?"

Now it's Grissom's turn to awkwardly answer a question. "She's...erm...she's not quite asleep yet." And down the receiver, Catherine can hear the familiar little voice wheedle,

"Uncle Gil – can you sing me the Kermit song?" Six-year old Lindsey Willows, squinting curiously into the bathroom through the keyhole and wondering why her Uncle Gil is talking to himself.

"Gil! You didn't sing the song?" Catherine says sternly.

Gil fidgets uneasily on the tiled floor. "I can't sing." he mumbles. "You're the performer..."

"It's hardly the symphony, Grissom - she's six years old!" Catherine snaps exasperatedly. "And she's got school tomorrow so she needs to get some sleep!" Catherine exhales in irritation. "You're like a child. Put me on speaker-phone again; we'll do it together."

Feeling slightly less reluctant, Grissom presses the speaker-phone button and sets his cell phone on the floor.

-

Brass had caught up with Catherine in the halls of the crime-lab.

"A messy B and E in Henderson," he explained briefly. "Where's Grissom?"

"It's his night off – I'm covering." she'd told him.

"Night off, huh? It must be important," Brass grinned. "Okay – well, it's your call, who's on this one?"

Catherine opened her mouth to reply but was cut off as her cell phone began to buzz against her hip. Glancing at the screen, she offered a smile to him.

"That's Grissom now," she commented. "Grab Warrick or Nick and I'll meet you in the car." Brass nodded and headed off down the hall as Catherine stepped into the nearby break room, pulling out her cell phone to take the call. Opening it out and holding it against her ear, Grissom's voice came calmly and smoothly down the line.

"In your sheer eagerness to help me out of this situation, Catherine," he started with cheery undertones of sarcasm. "You forgot to tell me how, exactly, I'm meant to put your daughter to bed whilst we're on two different sides of a door."

She stopped dead in the middle of the hall. "What?" Catherine demanded. "She's not stuck in there with you?"

"No...she's not," Gil answered.

"Wait – wait, so let me get this straight," and Catherine's voice began to take on an aggressive edge. "My six-year old has got free run of the house which is like some unsupervised death trap and you can't do anything about it because you're trapped in the goddamn bathroom?"

Gil paused before speaking, tentatively. "I think you're overreacting a little bit, Cath."

"Overreacting?" she yelled, overreacting. "Overreacting!" She took a deep breath. "Right – okay, Gil. Where is Lindsey right now?"

"She's right outside the door," Gil told her instantly, pleased to have a question he can answer. "I do know where she is, Cath – this isn't an entirely hopeless situation."

"Not entirely? Oh, that's good to know," Catherine snapped back. "I feel a whole lot better now. How could you let this happen?"

"How? Cath – I didn't do it on purpose." he protested.

"You know that the bathroom door does that if you tug it – it's happened enough times," Catherine retorted and then, in the face of the silence that followed, sighed and relented. "Never mind, Gil. Do you have speakerphone on that thing?"

"Yep – do you want me to put you on?" Gil offered and pressed the speakerphone option on the cell phone, holding it out to the locked door. "You're on now."

"Thanks," Catherine's voice sounded tinny, bouncing off the tiled walls. "Lindsey? Linds, honey, are you there?"

Lindsey sat up immediately and scrambled over to the tightly-shut bathroom door, pressing spread palms against the unresponsive wood.

"Mommy? Mommy!" she called through the door.

"Hey baby, how are you? Are you okay?" Catherine's voice came back at her and Gil could hear, with a pang of guilt, the concern and anxiety etched into her voice.

"I'm fine, Mommy." Lindsey assured her brightly and then, after a pause, "Are you stuck in the bathroom too?"

Catherine chanced a soft laugh at the question. "I might as well be, sweetie." she answered. "But everything will be okay if you do this one thing for me, Linds – will you promise me that you'll do exactly what Uncle Gil tells you to do. Just for tonight?"

"Okay, Mommy." Lindsey replied, still pushing hard against the door with small hands, with her cheek and ear up sideways against the surface. Over at the Las Vegas Crime Lab, Catherine Willows sighed to herself. This, like everything seemed to be lately, was a mess. Why was it her with the defective bathroom door? Why was it her with the fault-seeking ex-husband? Why was it her, stuck here at work, with her best friend and daughter shut in her house, a wall between them at the most inconvenient of times?

Outside in the parking lot, Brass glanced at his wristwatch and, with a click of his tongue, nudged Nick in the passenger seat.

"Hey, Nick – will you go and grab Catherine?" he asked. "This scene isn't gonna wait just because Gil wants a chat."

Nick opened the car door and jumped out before turning with a frown. "Grissom? I thought it's his night off?"

Jim Brass rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but I guess the guy can't stay away – he's on the phone to Catherine. She's in the break room, I think."

Laughing and shaking his head to himself, Nick swung the door shut and jogged back towards the lab.

"Promise me, Linds. I mean it, baby – this is important." Catherine urged. "Promise me you'll listen to your Uncle Gil tonight."

Lindsey nodded fervently though her mother couldn't see her. "I promise, Mommy," she vowed earnestly. "I promise."

"Okay, honey," Catherine smiled grimly, not noticing Nick quietly pushing open the door. "Okay, well – goodnight, baby. I'll try and get home as soon as I can. I love you."

"I love you!" Lindsey called back through the keyhole.

Catherine sighed slightly. "Goodnight, Gil," she added and hung up. When she ran a hand through her fringe and tucked away her cell phone again, however, she found herself looking up to the face of a very stunned Nick Stokes standing breathless in the doorway.

"What's up, Nicky?" Catherine questioned him, suspiciously. "Are you okay?" Nick had opened and shut his mouth a few times and blinked before finding his words.

"I'm – yeah – okay. I – uh – Brass and – B&E." he uttered, muddled. "Came to get you."

Catherine raised an eyebrow warily before following him out to the parking lot. "Yeah, I'm sorry – I got a little held up by Gil on the phone." she explained briefly. Nick only stared some more and kept walking wordlessly out to where Brass was waiting impatiently for them in the parking lot.

-

**04.32**

Once again, Catherine's voice crackles faintly from the speaker on Grissom's cell which he holds to the bathroom door as she clears her throat.

"Lindsey – sweetie, it's Mommy again," she begins gently. "Are you okay, honey?"

The six year old wipes her face on her pyjama sleeve and shakes her blonde head. "I'm cold and it's scary, Mommy." she whimpers. Catherine flinches slightly and sits down on the bench in the deserted locker room, staring hard at her locker door – wishing she could be there with her daughter and Gil more than anywhere else.

"Okay, baby, it's okay. Be brave for me, honey – Uncle Gil and I are gonna sing the Kermit song together for you," Catherine tells her, reassuringly. "Because you know how it gets you to sleep – and I promise you that when you wake up, I'll be there. Okay? I promise."

Lindsey clutches onto one of Elmer's feet and hugs it tightly. "Okay." she whispers and sinks to curl in a ball, leaning against the door, on the floor.

"Okay." Catherine repeats, determined. "Ready, Uncle Gil?" And Uncle Gil makes no willing response but she starts up anyway.

"_It's not that easy being green_," she sang, quietly at first, and self-consciously despite the empty room. "_Having to spend each day_ – Gil, seriously –"

Gil rolls his eyes and reluctantly joins in with the singing. "– _the__colour of the leaves. When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow, or gold. Or something much more colourful like that_..."

Despite the distance, it brings a small smile to Catherine's face. She'll be home soon, she can concentrate on that, and her little girl will still be safe – she will still be safe and sleeping and happy. She wasn't a bad mother. She wasn't a bad mother.

"..._It's not easy being green. It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things. And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're not standing out like the flashy sparkles in the water_..."

Outside of the bathroom, Lindsey Willows slides her small thumb into her mouth and blinks slowly. She yawns. "Uncle Gil?" she mentions sleepily, drifting off.

"..._or stars in the sky_..." Gil pressed an eye to the keyhole. "Yes, what is it, sweetie?"

Lindsey shuts her eyes softly and yawns widely once again, curling up into a ball. "You sound funny."

On the other end of the line, Catherine grins as Gil gently explains, "That's because I can't sing, sweetie."

"..._But green's the colour of Spring. And green can be cool and friendly-like_..."

"Oh."

"..._And green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain, or tall like a tree..._"

Gil looks at the sleeping girl and smiles to himself. "..._When green is all there is to be_...I think she's gone, Catherine. It worked."

"Of course it worked," Catherine tells him, matter-of-factly. "It's never failed me yet." She ponders these words momentarily. "Just like you, I guess."

"..._It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why?_..."

"I'm not much of a singer, though," Gil comments wryly. "..._Wonder, I am green and it'll do fine_..."

"Lindsey doesn't mind," Catherine replies. "And I don't. I like your voice."

"You're just saying that because I'm stuck here on the wrong side of a bathroom door." Gil says and Catherine only laughs.

"..._it's beautiful_..." she finishes, absently playing with the zip on her leather boots as she sits in the darkened locker room. "..._And I think it's what I want to be_..."

"Well, Willows – it's nice to see you making good use of your time," CSI Three, Conrad Ecklie stands in the locker room doorway with a smirk on his face. Catherine spins around to see him, an angry blush rising in her cheeks.

And,

. . . . ."Crap."

. . . . . . . . . . is the last thing that Gil hears uttered from the speaker phone before Catherine hangs up.

- o -


	4. Near Ego Nut

**Disclaimer: They're not mine.**

**Rating: PG or K+**

**Summary: "Want me to tell you about the time Lindsey accidentally locked Gil in our bathroom?" she offered brightly. "She was about six. He was stuck in there until I came home from work four hours later."**

**I love reviews. I love Christmas. I love reviews. Thank you, reviewers! Once again, you didn't let me down, so I'm thanking Krys33, icklebitodd, DrusillaBraun, Lizzy Sidle, Daisyangel, Mellie Erdmann, charmed1818, CSI Battosai (an hour's still pretty long! Although it isn't quite four...), Review1234, ibreak4CSI, coolcatz and haley104, who I must thank especially for coming back after leaving a quite different review for the first chapter – it makes all the difference that you've come back and changed your tune. It's very gratifying, thank you. **

**Anyway, I hope everyone's had a really great December 25th and both religious and non-religious festivals surrounding said date (see how I get away with my lengthy and unnecessary political correctness?) And don't forget to visit the live journal community: writeunderscoreimpulsive, for all your creative-writing-challenge needs. What this chapter lacks in laugh-out-loud funniness, I hope, I'm making up for in the "aww" factor. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
**

**One Mississippi. Chapter Four. Near Ego Nut**

- o -

**04.51**

Ecklie smirks some more and saunters into the locker room as Catherine tucks away her phone, blushing furiously but fixing him with a challenging stare.

"You know, I hadn't counted on being serenaded today – it makes working the Grave Shift as Grissom's replacement so much easier." Ecklie goes on.

"Temporary stand-in." Catherine snaps back quickly and Ecklie raises an eyebrow.

"What?"

"You're not his replacement," Catherine corrects coolly. "You're a temporary stand-in supervisor, for one night only."

Ecklie's expression changes and darkens. "And you're a CSI Level Three who's meant to be working, not singing children's songs in an empty locker room." he counters sharply. Catherine scowls.

"I was just taking a break to say goodnight to my daughter before I write up my finished case," Catherine mutters in response.

"Well, balancing careers and parenthood can be tough, so I've heard," Ecklie answers smoothly. "If you need to take some time off, Catherine – a leave of absence or work part-time, even..."

Catherine's eyes flash dangerously. "Thank you for your concern, Conrad." she cuts him off pointedly and adds in a cold voice, "But I'm coping fine."

The shadow of a sneer crosses Conrad's face just for a moment. "Clearly."

Biting down on her lip, Catherine resists the temptation to throw a punch in his the direction of his face and instead gets up stiffly, forcing on a smile.

"You and I had better get back to work," Catherine tells him with false politeness. "They'll be missing me."

Ecklie pauses before standing aside to let her pass him in the doorway and, as she did so, he murmurs gently, "I hate to say it, Catherine – but law enforcement is still a man's game."

Catherine only fixed him with a disgusted glare, refusing stubbornly to rise to the bait, and stalks off.

-

**04.55**

"He said _what _to you?" Gil repeats, incredulously. "Ecklie has no right to talk like that to you – not only is it completely unprofessional, but it's just plain ignorant."

A smile flickers faintly onto Catherine's lips. Listening to him rant about it was somehow more therapeutic than doing it herself. She sits forwards in her chair at a desk in the file room, writing up her day's case – open and shut – now where was the challenge in that?

"Oh well – what do you expect? It's Ecklie; he's an ass." Catherine replies lethargically.

"I'd expect a little more respect from him to you," Gil snaps. She shrugged her shoulders indifferently and yawns widely.

"Never mind," she says indifferently. "I know where I stand."

"As long as you're okay, I guess," he relents with a sigh. "And as long as I know where I stand – between you and Conrad Ecklie, we might keep conflict to a minimum."

Catherine laughs slightly, rubbing her tired eyes. "Well, I appreciate your concern, Gil; that's sweet. But I'm not gonna let him shake me." She scribbles down a few more words from her case notes and adjusts the cell phone jammed between her shoulder and ear. "So how are you holding up?"

"I'm fine; we're fine," Gil answers, calming down. "Lindsey's still asleep and I'm still locked in the bathroom."

Catherine smiles. "Okay, okay – I'm coming home as soon as I'm done writing this up," she tells him. "I promise."

-

Nick pulled on his latex gloves with a wry smile as Catherine flicked on her flashlight and moved further into the trashed and ransacked house. As Jim Brass stepped outside to talk to the homeowners, Nick began to choose his words carefully and wandered with forced casualness up to Catherine who stepped carefully around broken lampshades and smashed vases.

"So," he ventured hesitantly, like testing waters before diving in. "How long as the whole Grissom thing been going on?"

Catherine continued to swing her flashlight beam in wide, slow arcs around the destroyed room. "What Grissom thing?" she asked absently. Nick frowned and took a few more careful steps towards her.

"You know – I heard you two on the phone," Nick admitted. "And it's not too hard putting two and two together. I mean – that's what we do, right?"

At this point, Catherine's flashlight beam swung down to shine only at the carpet as she turned, fixing Nick with a confused expression – one dubiously raised eyebrow and a small smile on her face.

Nick's eyes narrowed slightly. "Hey – it's alright, you know, Cath. I think it's kind of sweet," he rambled on. "You're practically made for each other. Greg and I were wondering when you two'd figure it out and get together."

"Get to what-now?" Catherine repeated. But then she recalled her voice and the last part of that phone call and a broad grin spread on her face as it clicked. "Wow, Nicky – you just put two and two together to make a hundred."

"Huh?" Nick blinked perplexed a couple of times.

"We're not together, Nicky." Catherine told him firmly. "Gil's babysitting for me at the last minute. He put me on speaker to Linds."

"Oh." he said and flushed red as it made sense. "Oh. Right."

Catherine laughed lightly and raised the flashlight up again, picking her way further into the room. As she did so, Nick's words flowed subconsciously through her head. She stopped suddenly, midst wreckage and ruins, as one particular line hit her. _Practically made for each other_. After a pause, she smirked. That'd be Nick and Greg's imaginations running wild again – seriously, when those two were together, they were like a pair of nine-year olds. She and Gil were just friends. Just really good friends.

-

**05.18**

It's been one hell of a shift, Catherine muses, as she heads to her car whilst reaching for her cell phone to dial that number once more. When Gil Grissom, slumped against the porcelain tiles, grabs his cell phone, hoping its ringing didn't wake the sleeping six-year old outside, and hears her voice down the phone line for the final time that night, it spreads a broad smile across his face.

"I'm coming home," is all she says. Just those three words, in her voice, send a tingle across the receiver, along his spine and fingertips. He smiles.

"Thank God." he replies and hears Catherine breathe a laugh before she ends the call and starts her car – heading home to him.

- o -


	5. Earn ?

**Disclaimer: They're not mine.**

**Rating: PG or K+**

**Summary: "Want me to tell you about the time Lindsey accidentally locked Gil in our bathroom?" she offered brightly. "She was about six. He was stuck in there until I came home from work four hours later."**

**Good evening, folks! And welcome to the final instalment of One Mississippi. Thanks for all of the great reviews that have inspired me along the way, especially those of you who reviewed the last chapter, Krys33 (Heh heh, after this one, I'm all out of ideas), September (Thanks – and it's anagrams, my love! Acronyms are something else...), charmed1818, icklebitodd (send her straight home, I'd say! And Sara's probably been off somewhere in my head, having some happy WarrickSara action...), Daisyangel, daynaaa, cherishedcrush (Aww, I hope you're alright, my dear. You don't sound all too happy), Mrs. Rhett Butler, Ophelia-Speaks, haley104, Dragonfly Faith (Oh, definitely totally), coolcatz, Nix707 (very well said! I never got GSR personally) and Review1234 (did you get my email?)**

**Anyway – I've left the end off this chapter title so you can make a word out of the remaining letters from Neutrogena. I'll give you a hand. The remaining letters are T, O, N, G, U and E. It was just wild coincidence. But then again, is that too explicit for a K+ fic? Remember folks – Gil and Cath only get together in Chapter 12 of Wake The Hope; this fic is only a sideline from that, so I really should stick to my story... Well anyway, thanks for reading! Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
**

**One Mississippi. Chapter Five. Earn...?**

- o -

**05.31**

Gil sits straight up suddenly and knocks his skull on the dangling showerhead when he hears a car pull into the driveway on street-level below. He leaps up and dashes to the bedroom window in time to see Catherine running down from her parked car towards her front door. He hears her keys rattle impatiently and turn in the lock; hears her kick off her shoes at the front door and race up the stairs.

"Gil?" she calls softly through the house. "Hello?" And she stops when she reaches the bathroom door and sees her little girl asleep against it.

"Oh, Linds," Catherine murmurs with a sigh. "My poor baby – sleeping out here in the cold hall. Let's put you to bed, sweetie..."

"Catherine?" Gil calls out. He sees shadows move under the closed bathroom door. Catherine presses an eye to the bathroom keyhole and sees that familiar grey-blue iris on the other side.

"I'm sorry for this, Gil," she says and offers a small smile that he sees only in her eyes. "I'll get you out of there – just give me a second. And stand back."

Gil chuckles slightly; she made it sound so dramatic – but then again, this has been one of the most eventful babysitting evenings he's ever done. He takes a step back as Catherine gently moves her sleeping daughter out of the way and leans her shoulder against the door.

"It's got some kind of catch on it – you gotta press it in and to the left when you turn the door handle," Catherine mutters distractedly and the door swings easily open as though it had always done. "I've been meaning to get it fixed."

She shrugs her shoulders apologetically and smiles again, sheepishly. "I guess I forgot."

"I guess you did." Gil smiles back and, for a moment, pauses in the doorway, looking at her. And then Catherine breaks his gaze, carefully picking up Lindsey.

"I'd better get you into a real bed, huh?" Catherine whispers in Lindsey's ear as she and Gil carry the sleeping girl off to bed.

-

**06.15**

With take-out Chinese food scattered in boxes over Catherine's kitchen table, Gil catches Catherine glancing up guiltily at him again. He sighs melodramatically and sets his wooden chopsticks down onto the tabletop, fixing her with a stare.

"Catherine..." he begins. "It's okay – it doesn't matter."

"Sure it does," Catherine replies. "You take one night off for the first time in years and you end up locked in my bathroom all night with me yelling down the phone at you. I'm so sorry, Gil."

Gil pauses for a moment, pondering this before answering, "That makes twelve times you've apologised to me tonight." he tells her and she only grins briefly, shaking her head. "It didn't cost me anything – unless you want to pay me back for the twenty cents phone call it took to cancel my plans."

Catherine raised an eyebrow. "You really did have plans?" she asks, guilt spreading across her face again. "Jesus, Gil – I thought you were just making up an excuse. What kind of plans?"

"A date." he answers directly. Catherine narrows her eyes slightly and then she grins, turning back to the portion of egg fried rice.

"Very funny – you almost had me there." she smiles. "See, this is why I can never take you seriously, Gil."

Gil looks mildly amused at her comment. "Well, I'm insulted that you think I can only be joking when I say I've got a date." he tells her, not at all insulted.

"Oh God – you're serious," Catherine drops her dinner and leans across the table at him, wide-eyed and guilt-ridden. "I'm so sorry. Jesus, Gil – I'm really sorry. Who was it with?"

"Uh – Teri," he mutters, awkward now.

Catherine's forehead hits her palm with a groan. "Christ Gil – that's like – what? – the third date? That's a big deal for you. And you missed it...for me."

"For you. Yes." he nods. "It doesn't matter, Cath. It wasn't going anywhere."

"A third date and you say that's not going anywhere?" she says dubiously. "Now I know you're lying. You never go on more than one date with someone unless you think it's going somewhere. Two, maybe, if you're being polite."

Gil shrugs his shoulders. "Well it's certainly not going anywhere after this. Something about short notice and my maddening incapability to empathise." And then he laughs slightly at Catherine's mortified expression.

"Oh God," she repeats, burying her face in her arms, slumped across the table. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," Gil assures her once again. "And anyway, I recall you saying the same thing to me once."

Catherine looks up and smiles lamely. "And I meant it, too," she asserts.

He grins and, suddenly averting his eyes from her stare, points his chopsticks at the last remaining spring roll. "Do you want that?"

Passing it across, Catherine shakes her head. "No – no, go ahead."

-

**07.03**

Catherine lies stretched out across her couch, her feet in his lap and the early morning sunlight creeping through the blinds, strips of gold tiered across the carpet. He ponders her feet in his lap, remembers when they had stepped to throbbing bass beats in ridiculously high heels – painted toenails and bright lights everywhere. Now they spend double shifts moving just as elegantly in leather ankle boots, a far cry from some years back – somehow he liked them even more now, but maybe that was just natural – and maybe he'd like them even more tomorrow.

"You should call her," she says, out of the blue. "Teri Miller – you should call her. You can use the house phone."

Gil looks at her and then shakes his head. "No. I don't...I don't think that'd be a good idea."

She sits up on her elbows and raises her eyebrows. "That bad, huh?" she sympathises. "I'm sorry – it's all my fault."

"No, it's not," he insists. "It wasn't just tonight – she has a problem with you. Or rather, with us."

"In what way?" Catherine asks, one arched eyebrow.

Gil smiles slightly and shrugs his shoulders. "I guess she's always been a bit suspicious that what we have isn't something more – something suppressed." He laughs awkwardly and shrugs his shoulders once more. "The fact that I cancelled on her to come here seemed far too much for her – I guess she stopped believing me whenever I told her nothing was going on."

Catherine kneels up, closer to him and half-smiles. "Jesus, it really is my fault." she mutters.

"No – no it isn't," Gil repeats earnestly. "It's just her. And probably me, too. But not you."

"And Nick and Greg," Catherine adds darkly. "Apparently, they'd been wondering when we'd 'get together' or words to that effect."

Gil chuckles. "How come everyone else can see it apart from us?" he wonders out loud. "Is there something here that I'm missing?" And Catherine looks at him carefully.

"Maybe there is," she says slowly and they find themselves leaning closer in the partial light. "Maybe they're right."

And there falls a sort of stillness. Everything seems to freeze. His lips touch hers – as though they always had done. And he takes her lead as her eyelids flutter shut. And now it's dark and silent and there might as well be nothing at all – nothing else at all...

"Mommy! Mommy – you're back!" Lindsey's yell from the fourth stair up jumps them apart. The six year old leaps down the rest of the stairs and half-runs, half-skids over to the couch, pouncing into her mother's lap and hugging her tightly.

"I sure am, baby – just like I said I'd be," Catherine beams and glances intermittently across at Gil who smiles shyly to himself. "And did you have a good time with Uncle Gil?"

"Yup!" Lindsey grins back and looks at Uncle Gil. "He turned my baked potato into a ladybug. And then I ate it."

"You ate a ladybug?" Catherine teases, wrinkling her nose in mock-distaste. "Ew – what was it like?"

"Kinda crunchy, right, Linds?" Gil chimes in with a mischievous glint in his eye. Lindsey giggles at the pair of them.

"Uncle Gil's being silly, Mommy," she tells her mother. "It wasn't a real one."

Catherine smiles at Gil. "Uncle Gil is always being silly, sweetie."

Gil shrugs his shoulders innocently and gets to his feet, picking up his jacket slung over the sofa. "Well Uncle Gil's gotta go home now since he really needs some sleep." he says.

"No, wait," Catherine stops him. "Stay – take the spare; you can sleep here."

He pauses by the front door. "I don't know if that's such a good –"

"Gil. Don't pretend we don't need to talk about this," Catherine urged him, softly. "Please tell me it hasn't just been me going crazy over this lately. Please tell me you'll stay – just to talk it over."

There's a long silence in which everything – all the moments they'd shared between the day he'd first met her up until this very second, tumbled wildly in his head. Finally though, he let out a sigh and looked directly at Catherine with a tinge of sadness.

"We do. And I have – I really have," he assures her. "But this isn't the right time. You know it isn't; we both know. It just isn't, Cath."

He offers her a smile and slips on his jacket. "I'll see you tomorrow." And he was gone, through a front door that had had his back more often than it'd had Eddie's.

Talk it over? Catherine supposed they just never got round to it and eventually the whole memory became like a fragile dream that they just couldn't bring themselves to talk about just in case trying to get a stronger hold on it, shattered it forever.

The closest they both came to confronting it was when Catherine's sister had to leave Lindsey with Catherine at work. The six year old had sat patiently in the break room, colouring in pictures and talking to whichever CSI was in the room, keeping an eye on her.

As Catherine's shift finished up and she headed over to take Lindsey home, the little girl just so happened to be in the middle of casually telling Nick Stokes about that night when her mom and her Uncle Gil locked themselves in the bathroom all night and wouldn't come out.

And Nick had raised an eyebrow at Catherine. "Not together my ass," he'd muttered cynically to himself before saying goodnight to the confused CSI Three and seeking out Greg to share the news with.

- o -

_**Need the GCR fix that never was? Try Chapters 12, 13 and 16 of Wake The Hope. Or dig up some other wonderful fics by our many talented GCR writers. Have a wonderful 2006!**_

- o -_**  
**_


End file.
